It cannot have escaped anyone’s attention that Theresa May always looks more at home among the Brussels neocons than she does when facing the House of Commons. Perhaps, being a parson’s daughter, she is more at home telling the truth to eurocrats than lying to MPs. In this third and final part of today’s three-parter, we look at the Devil in the detail of the Prime Minister’s less than flexible flextension agreement with the EU.
Part 3: Dirty Dancing with the Dictators
Having coined the term ‘Brextension’, I was somewhat miffed to discover the British MSM had decided that ‘flextension’ – a risible bit of Orwellian Newspeak that emanated from Donald Tusk’s office – was a better description of the new October 31st phoney war. The more I delved into the details of the October 31st extension, the angrier I got. Far from being (to quote the BBC) “a soft extension with no onerous clauses in it of the kind demanded by President Macron”, it is in reality about as flexible as a prehistoric tree.
The degree of British media self-censorship in relation to the Brextension Diktat simperingly accepted by Theresa May on April 11th has been so consistent in its synthetic acceptance of Brussels spin, it cannot be put down to journalistic incompetence or simple idleness. The restraints to which Theresa May has signed up are so numerous – so ever present on almost every page – they couldn’t possibly be missed by even the most drunken tabloid hack.
One is left suspecting (as always these days) the threat of D-Notices all round unless the media behaved. And so, naturally, they did.
Take, for example, Article 50(3) of the European Council Decision (EDC) of last week: (my emphases)
“…the United Kingdom shall facilitate the achievement of the Union’s tasks and shall refrain from any measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the Union’s objectives, in particular when participating in the decision-making processes of the Union.”
This is a truly astonishing codicil which can only be interpreted in one way: either you vote for everything we want, or you are out. There literally is no other understanding of it beyond, “your vote is either for us or worthless”. From the Treaty of Rome all the way through to Lisbon, this is illegal under the EU Constitution.
The supposedly laissez-faire extension continues in the same vein:
“This extension excludes any re-opening of the Withdrawal Agreement. Any unilateral commitment, statement or other act by the United Kingdom should be compatible with the letter and the spirit of the Withdrawal Agreement, and must not hamper its implementation. Such an extension cannot be used to start negotiations on the future relationship.”
The demands of this insistence are beyond funny. “We give Britain all the time it needs to agree completely with us on everything they don’t agree with us about”.
Allegedly, May’s Brextension has been dubbed ‘flextension’ because it allows us to leave earlier if an agreement is reached. Not true: the only circumstance in which we can Brexit early is if the UK ratifies the Withdrawal Agreement. “Tell us how wrong you have been and sign our diktat, and you are free to leave”.
But next up is a real doozey: I wonder what percentage of the British electorate grasp this: there is no exit on WTO terms allowed for in the extension period. In a way, this is really a recognition of what Cooper the teenage Vandal has already achieved in her rushed-through banning Law. But the Prime Minister has now confirmed in a signed deal with the EU that we will not leave without a deal. This will make it ten times more difficult to repeal the Cooper Act. We are now effectively committed to a deal in some form or other until November 1st 2019.
It’s not hard to see the game plan here, because it is classic EU practice: “we will keep on extending until you say yes”. And unless our Political Class allows The People to have a general election (no chance of that one, then) there is nothing The People can do to defend the Sovereign Decision of The People. Um…..
That, folks, is my definition of trussed up in a concrete slab and dropped into the Hudson River….with the proviso, “Good luck – and please feel free to wriggle as much as you like”.
And here’s one final killer punch on the nose for the Cabinet, Parliament, Constitution and People: the agreement was signed on May’s behalf before a single one of them had been allowed to comment on it. The Chief Executive of Britain’s sovereign body signed this Treaty of Compiègne without the approval of any other constitutional officers. Tinfoil Theresa obviously sees herself as a monarch with Divine Right to absolute, prerogative powers. Not even La Thatcher would’ve pulled a stunt like that.
Arise, Queen Theresa I.
Not only did Theresa May – yet again – disguise the real nature of the prison we have come to call Flextension when reporting to Parliament, so keen were the Commons troughers to buzz off in search of the Easter skive, very few of them even bothered to read beyond the sanitised press brief issued by Donald Tooooosk.
I am delighted to recognise that others with sharper eyes pointed me at the full version, and that I have drawn heavily from their conclusions – because I agree with all of them, based on the content therein.
This is the situation that we Brits – allegedly the cradle of modern freedoms – must now come to recognise, but not accept:
- Our Prime Minister is batting for the other side, cares not a fig for our laws, and suffers delusions of religious grandeur. She must be taken down.
- Far from working hard to take The People’s part, Corbyn Labour is negotiating with her clique in order to dilute not just Brexit, but even Brino. It has failed to recognise the federalist EU for what it is – a neoliberal rich capitalist’s club. It has fallen victim to the siren calls of pc fanatics and narcissist minorities….and as such, it no longer speaks for the majority of citizens.
- The great majority of the Conservative Party is very happy to go along with May’s nightmare vision of a neoliberal economy and neocon foreign policy, because it is largely peopled by self-serving nonentities of little foresight who are incapable of independent, contrarian thought.
- The choice for those who value self determination, devolution and Citizens’ control over their destiny remains the same: role over and accept remote control from distant unacountables, or get rid of a Remainer Parliament.
In her unctuous wisdom, Yvetter Cooper has removed the option of WTO No Deal. And her arch enemies the Tory Party have no stomach for an election.
I do not and never will approve of violent demonstrations. But in the current swamp, it must be very hard for ordinary people to summon up a viable alternative.
So well done, Westminster, Fleet Street and Downing street: you fucked us over again.
We have arrived unhappily at the Place Called Here for all kinds of long, medium and short term reasons: lack of good history and civics teaching in schools, pernicious or gullible ideology, 40 years of Brussels lies about federal, fiscal, and military ambitions, weakness among those who followed Thatcher on the subject of EU superpower megalomania, American neocon hegemony, the growing engorgement of military intelligence aspirations, robotic Labour blindness on the nature of free-speech democracy, the irresponsible sociopathy of David Cameron, and the recruitment of Theresa May by the corporacratic globalists.
It took me four months to finally twig what my initial two sources from Spring 2016 had been on about: the slow and steady assurance of the Fat Controllers that public apathy, short memories and wide-eyed trust would allow for even the biggest plebiscite in British history to be reformulated, then diluted and finally poured down the sink….without the slightest chance of any form of telling revolution in British politics taking place.
The point of this unique one day triple-header at The Slog is not to make wild conspiracy theory accusations. Rather, it is to use strange events, unprecedented actions and above all bald facts to reiterate two simple points:
1. Nigel Farage can call his new toy The Brexit Party, but the issue at stake here is infinitely bigger than that, and extends far beyond the British Isles: the issue at stake is a citizen’s Personal Destiny Control (PDC) versus unaccountable Superstate lust for power
2. Disgust, abstention and shouting at the telly are no longer fit for purpose. The sole weapon left in our armoury is The Vote. The sole will required is preparedness to use it intelligently to take away the powers of the élites one by one. If we do get euroelections, then we must do just that.
I was reading part 3 of these blog posts through a Facebook post when….abracadabra…..the post disappeared. Don’t you just love Facebook.
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Read this tweet & read the tweet jolyon is responding to; I don’t know why so many MP’s & the media have portrayed Cooper’s act the way they have but they are incorrect about it.
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‘No deal’ is a part of A50 of the treaty on European Union; it can never be ruled out or taken off the table no matter what MP’s might wish or want. ‘No deal’ is always the default of our ‘exit day’ no matter when that is and MP’s can make up all the rules they want & vote against ‘no deal’ as much as they like but they don’t have the power to change the treaty on European Union & that’s why ‘no deal’ never goes away. Most media articles are incorrect in how they portray Cooper’s act; it was a one time act & it has no bearing on our future exit date.
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Your ‘no deal’ conclusions are incorrect; Cooper’s bill only mandated the PM to seek an extension, nothing more. It does not rule out ‘no deal’ & there is in fact an opening for leaving with ‘no deal’ on May31 if we didn’t take part in EU elections & had not ratified May’s sham of a deal either.
Cooper’s act has no bearing on any future ‘no deal’ exit dates
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Read the Act again and then go to https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/03/mps-pass-motion-to-debate-article-50-extension-by-one-vote which states quite clearly (as Cooper and Benn both confirmed) that the objective of the Act is to make No Deal impossible. Also remember that 80% of MPs earlier voted to take no deal off the table.
This is hair-splitting: the very clear message that has gone out to Brussels (and the UK electorate) is that the Mother of All Parliaments doesn’t want to leave without a deal – and they are right in those assumptions. JW
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https://wikitacticalvoting.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page Wiki coming along
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To put TreasonMay’s acts into perspective, here’s a link to an article by Mark Curtis, which although dealing with uk foreign policy informs on the true nature of our democracy:
http://markcurtis.info/2019/03/27/british-foreign-policy-in-the-middle-east-a-secret-history-of-self-interest/
May is yet another hooligan in a long line of british criminals that are totally unaccountable to the electorate
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John, Thankyou for your valuable summary of the Death of Democracy in the UK. However your Conclusion is not one I can agree with!. You state that the Only weapon left in Our Armory is the Vote, after your three part analysis demonstrates the utter contempt for our democratic voice / vote. The leverage applied must be more than just a cross in a box to be subsequently ignored again. If you keep sitting down at a rigged poker game expect the bank to win again. They need a history lesson why the sham of voting was necessary and granted and it was not for the good of the population!.They need to respect the vote or be held to account!.
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Hi Chris,
Thanks for the kind words, but I think you’ve got my “conclusion” all wrong – and that may well be my fault, not yours.
I agree with what you say about the utter cntempt they have for our votes, but in other (regular) posts in recent times I have been arguing very hard for INTELLIGENT TACTICAL VOTING – hence my assoiation with Roger Lewis, who is very much on the side of the ignored and knows a lot about developing software for optimal tactical voting.
I know some threaders think Roger goes on too long & I sometimes think that too, but he is bright and has great enthusiasm.
Let me refer you to perhaps a seminal Slogpost on this subject:
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/the-saturday-essay-why-personal-destiny-control-pdc-is-now-a-global-phenomenon-from-which-liberty-can-benefit/
It’s a longish read and much broader in its subject matter than Brexit and FPTP voting. But its essence is to say that you can beat FPTP if voters can be guided into making their vote count most effectively.
Essetially, it’s about taking the tribal fear out of tactical voting, and giving new hope to the alienated. JW
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John under the Lisbon Treaty 2022 I understand ALL states cease to exist, ALL taxes/foreign policy are set by the commission, ALL states have to adopt the euro which in y opinion is a heinous crime and TREASONOUS as there was no referendum seeking sanction from the UK citizens. It would never have happened. Why have MP’s not brought treasonous charges against May and her troupe? Is this the reason for handing the control of our military to foreigners for fear of uprising as it is easier to dispatch german troops to supress the English than use their own military an old roman strategy qv Romania.
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Written in this ‘Edict’ was also a paragraph that stated we could leave under WTO on 1st June, IF we did not ratify WA and did not hold EP Elections.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/39042/10-euco-art50-conclusions-en.pdf
Para 3.
This may be an earlier edict, as I saw another, possibly the one you quoted where the date, in para 10 [I think] stated 31st May, maybe only 60 seconds, but…..
Also, why cant we seek to annul under Vienna Convention 1969?
Vienna Convention 1969 Law & Treaties; Part 5, Section 2, Articles 43 -56
“Article 51. COERCION OF A REPRESENTATIVE OF A STATE;
The expression of a State’s consent to be bound by a treaty which has been procured by the coercion of its representative through acts or threats directed against him shall be without any legal effect.”
She’s been told to ask Corbyn, because their Treaty is against our Constitution and as such breaks A50 [1].
No out going PM is allowed to tie the hands of an incoming PM and as such Corbyn could repeal any act he sees fit.
She needs his OK.
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Thank you for writing this but you mistake the EU as a capitalist enterprise. it is not, and never has been. No market capital based system would conceive of the EU. The idea of tarriff walls, customs blocks and the inefficiencies, control systems and obvious from the outset political centralisation is antithetical to the capitalist, market economic mind.
The EU was designed solely and completely to become an authoritarian communist state, where the citizen was forever, irrevocably removed from any opportunity or say in their future while an unaccountable, unelected clique controlled their lives.
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There is a fundamental point underlying the major political and economic trends of the last century and this. The advances made during the 20th century were made because governments needed hundreds of thousands if not millions of men to fight wars and a large number of women to fill the places of the men at work at home. The governments had to give something in return. After the First World War everyone got the vote and pensions. Many professions started to open to women, probably because many women expected never to marry due to the huge number of men sacrificed in the war. After the Second World War, we got the welfare state and in particular the NHS.
It is unlikely that any future conflict between the world’s superpowers will involve mass conscription. There would be mass casualties but the people fighting the war would be professional soldiers, sailors and military pilots. The government can therefore withdrew human rights and the benefits offered by the state. What the government needs to do is offer better terms of employment to attract more recruits into the military forces, better terms anyway than the dole or zero hours contracts on which many young people languish.
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Thanks John – a very informative analysis.
It has felt very much like a coup as slowly but surely Brexit is quietly strangled before birth.
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Good series of articles. I still think that we have a good chance of leaving with Tilbrooks court case if people publicise it far and wide. The EU elections are just what the EU want. Farages lot can be neutralised with scandal and other devious devices once they are in . We need to leave ASAP. And the only mechanism available is the court case.
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Does anything believe that the Palace of Westminster is as flammable as Notre Dame?
Never a better time to burn that asbestos-ridden building down.
Build a new modern Parkiament somewhere else…..has Larry Silverstein advised HMG on how to insure asbestos-ridden White Elephants?
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May I offer you Wrexit?
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You may – sounds like a footie team:
Wrexit 3 Brino & Gove 3 (after extra time) JW
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Whilst not given to wild theories about what “they” are doing to “us” I find it very difficult not to believe that we are in the final stages of a process of ideological subversion of the type described in The New Normal and attributed to Yuri Bezmenov (although probably standard Western technique). It is pointless at this stage to state examples as it is all too obvious – and has occurred under the stewardship of all the political parties. I hesitate to congratulate the PTB for this achievement but do admire their patience and persistence. I guess the task of the next tenant at No 10 will be a mopping up exercise to normalize those remaining behaviours which are still regarded as taboo by a traumatised public and to oversee the melding of the populace with a 5G enabled internet of things. Job done.
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Again, we all owe you thanks John for your work. This article puts recent (since 1989) political history in clearer perspective. “Agent” May’s day’s may be numbered but we can be sure that any anointed successor will only continue this mendacious approach. And perhaps here will be the greatest trick the Establishment has yet to play. If I may conject, contrary to you, I do believe a general election will occur before the year is out and we will have a minority Labour government. A few bones will be tossed to the (genuine) left but clearly Corbyn and McDonnell will be ‘removed’ within a year with the Blairites quietly moving into place. That is actual purpose IMO of the oxymoronic ‘Independent” group – to prop up whatever shambles, blue or red, enables the continuation of EU subservience. Think of them as an SNP for metropolitan prats.
Anyway, returning to 1989, Thatcher’s downfall now clearly seems preordained long before 28.11.90. How much did GHW Bush influence that decision? That Hurd, Heseltine or Major were all ‘remainers’ suggests that the “Bastards” were either riddled with fifth columnists or thicker than we thought. Possibly both; then and now. Lots of noise but no real effect. How many joined UKIP? None except Carswell – where’s he gone?. Apparently, Cameron was told to go by his basketball buddy Obama. Seems the Donald has less sway over May.
I would not be apologetic about conspiracy theories John. They are only attempts at interpreting history by the hoi polloi. Often incorrect but valuable nonetheless for those lost in the fog, even if only as a crutch.
Lastly, do you remember all the wars films that were on every weekend and bank holiday when we were younger – Battle of Britain, Ice Cold in Alex, the one with one leg… – none of that stuff’s been on the telly for years now. Cannot imagine why.
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John,
A superb series of three essays, dismaying to read it all but we need to know it. I’ve emailed the links for the three of them to friends of mine. Whether they read them or not I don’t know but at least they have the links.
Brilliant work.
DavidC
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And another thing …. Imagine if some African state had run a referendum and then refused to implement the result. It would be all over the BBC news, presented as an outrage. The left would be up in arms, there’d be calls for sanctions and for the UN To be called in. What’s the difference?
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Reblogged this on Britain Isn't Eating!.
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Brilliant stuff, John. Thank you for using your time and pen so wisely.
We have no excuse now, not to act. Even as the spire of Notre Dame was collapsing, our own democracy was lying smouldering in ashes, having been torched by Theresa May.
No doubt Macron will use the tragedy to appear statesman like and to boost his popularity, whereas our Theresa blindly ploughs on like Alexa gone wrong.
Room for a couple of movies to be made there. One about a raging inferno at the centre of Europe that leaves a stink and the other a political movie about the capturing of Europe by businessmen/civils servants/idealogues(?).
“All the King’s Men” (1949) could be remade with a female lead to move with the times.
“This 1950 best picture Oscar winner follows the rise and fall of everyman politician Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford) who gets into politics hoping to help the working man, but when he gets in, becomes so corrupt that he no longer knows the difference between right and wrong”.
I am sure we could find a suitably wooden actress to play Mrs May.
Might be the best way to educate the populous to the shocking truth behind the tiresome smokescreen labelled Brexit-Flexit-Remain-it.
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When any institution gets so big – and I’m thinking here of large corporations, finance houses, governments and superstates – that it must not fail; that’s when the people in it become less important than the institution and its need for survival through power.
The kind of people who get the top jobs in such situations all have some degree of sociopathy, almost out of necessity to do the job. They are power hungry, cold and empty, and lack human empathy .
We can see sociopathy in the faces and in the actions of people like May, Juncker, Macron and Verhofstadt. We call them important. In fact they are flawed.
This is how human society has evolved. Ants and bees make a better job of cooperative living than we do.
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Tony Blair is doing his part: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/tony-blair-and-bertie-ahern-why-there-must-be-a-second-brexit-referendum-1.3860156
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I think Caratacus hints at this but it’s worth spelling out;
Every country’s armed forces are very patriotic of course – and in a very old fashioned sense probably alien to people like May and Robbins. It may be more difficult than the political class realise to order Tommy Atkins onto the streets to beat up or shoot his aunties and uncles. Better to ask the locally garrisoned EU regiment to do that whilst ours are shacked up watching the Russian border.
Not to mention the fact that the Army is completely demoralised anyway having been stripped of its back bone of SNCOs and WOs a few years ago, political correctness and H&S insanity, the ongoing witch hunts, crap prospects after leaving and ever shitter food as the civilian caterers squeeze the budgets for more profit. – was this always the intention?
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This is a brilliant insight and worthy of everyone’s attention. JW
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You’re a very brave man for publishing this John. Excellent read, but content extremely disturbing. With the exception of Abbot & Lammy, I can’t believe the remaining 647 MP’s have not exposed the extent of May’s treachery.
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Hi John,
A truly great trilogy and I wanted to wait until it was finished before commenting. You and I I have always been in agreement about full sovereign Brexit but differed as to how to go about it. Your method is the only one guaranteed to work but I think the cost will be too high and parliament won’t ever let it happen.
As you know I support Flexcit as written by the good Dr Richard North which is EFTA/EEA followed by ever more divergence as opposed to ever greater union. This plan, as envisaged, would form the template for all non Euro users to hopefully take in countries like Switzerland, Hungary, Poland and others as a bulwark block against the EU, a de facto two tier EU.
Of course there are major risks to this plan, it will take anything from 20-40 years to actually complete and Remainers will fight it every step of the way from day 1, it may never happen. Your plan also carries risks as the fight to rejoin will start the day after and the unforeseen could well see us rejoining on far more rigid terms.
The ultimate irony in all this of course is that the Remainers, engrossed with calling us thick gammon racists who should hurry up and die, are too stupid to see they’ve won. If the WA goes through we will enter eternal transition and never leave. Now there’s been an extension the precedent is set so it could be eternal extension, what I call Brexit California.
There is only one way Remain can lose which is the event of a second referendum, in which Remain would get trounced, that really would settle it, nothing short of revolution could overturn that. Who would be that monumentally stupid to demand such a vote? Ladies and gentlemen I give you People’s Vote who seriously think that the EU can ever survive democracy.
Sorry if this comment is a tad long but some things must be said whilst it’s still allowed.
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The WA is a globalist hit job intended to financially drain Britain of everything she’s got.
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I present the great British public:
Well, it’s arright for you sittin’ there in yer nice French Chalette near the Med and all tha’ – I’m up at 5 in the morning to take the dogs for a walk, all weathers mind, then make my wife’s breakfast, take the kids to school, then off the the factory, choir practice at lunchtime then back to work, off to take my mother to her friends house, back for tea in front of the fire and chat, take younguns to theatre group,try to catch Real Housewives of Pontefract then pick my mother up again, supper and a quickie, broke last week’s record of 4 mins then to sleep in order to get up and do the whole bloody thing again tomorrer ……..
BRAVO
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They will make sure the WA is signed off before May 23rd so there won’t be a vote in the EU elections. We’ll be well stitched up before then….
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Well, there’s absolutely no doubt about it now. We live in a dictatorship.
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A forthright explication of the whole bloody mess. Thank you.
The brazen, unashamed ruthlessness of the powers that be over the last 3 years has been mind boggling. A lot of eyes have been opened I’m sure, and they won’t be easily closed. It’s staggering that the bastards don’t seem even remotely aware that their hubris and actions are bound to have unintended consequences for them.
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Brilliant just brilliant, wonderful piece of work.
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I too have read the text, or at least the text that was handed out to the media. With the exception of the ruling out of WTO Brexit, I really don’t see that there even implicitly, all the points you make are sound. Of course, as you say, WTO Brexit is moot anyway since Cooper’s amendment was passed so it matters not at all as far as the text is concerned, short of in the most unlikely event of repeal by a new administration, of course.
It is worth noting that once again I had to abandon Google and use DuckDuckGo in order to find a link to the text. No doubt had I persevered I might have found it on the fifth page or so. I also did not see the actual text in any UK title, mind that might be because I can barely force myself to read more than two lines beyond the headline, that usually being more than enough to raise my BP.
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Quite so, Peter. DuckDuckgo and Mozilla Firefox are closely aligned with Web3 (see Slogposts passim) which I continue to believe is hugely important for liberty but currently occupied by tete-dans-cull pointyhead gobbledygeeks in attics around the world. JW
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Thank you John – possibly one of your best series of essays ever.
Every MP should be made to sit and read this .. but that presupposes that they can read and retain information presented to them in something other than crayon so I’m not expecting much in that direction. Any half-way decent human being would be ashamed to have been involved in any of this.
Agree with your remarks about violent demonstrations – it is almost as if the politicos are expecting trouble and have planned for it (unlike the no deal option). Thank heavens we have had so many EU countries exercising their soldiers over here recently (Operation Joint Warrior) … can’t have disorder on our streets.
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Excellent work John . I agree politics as we have known it for our lifetimes is broken and not fit for purpose . If not for the internet we would be totally musroomed , kept in the dark and fed on shit , but for how much longer will ” they ” allow it ?
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Reblogged this on RogersLongHairBlog and commented:
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https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
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Stitched up . John one can not give the benefit of the doubt to even the more ardent leavers that have allowed May and her nest of vipers to brew up this poison and inject it into the body politic. We must deliver the ground game tactics and match fitness for every constituency in the land to reclaim the sovereignty of every true Briton
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